


from now on (you're my dream)

by shinhwi



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, At one point, Dreams, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Past Lives, Platonic Soulmates, Reincarnation, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates, a bit - Freeform, i mean i tried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 22:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11587275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinhwi/pseuds/shinhwi
Summary: seonho and guanlin spend many lives chasing after each other, but it never works. (or does it?)alternatively,soulmate au where seonho and guanlin are fated to meet but never manage to stay together. they go through this life and the next finding and missing each other, but after four or five lives pass they just want fate to let them be happy.





	from now on (you're my dream)

**Author's Note:**

> i know you; i walked with you once upon a dream.

It starts on the battlefield.

Seonho is scared. The country is at war, and all capable young men were taken to join the army. He’s only sixteen. Just yesterday his mother had sent him off with watery eyes and an _I love you_ as she hugged him, trembling. He was so, so scared and so, so alone. The heavy armor pushed his shoulders down and in the deathly silence he could hear the sounds of the chainmail when he shifted. Next to him were thousands, the terror in their eyes reflecting his own. _I’m not ready for this._ He thought numbly. No one was. But yet here they were, some even younger than he was. Behind him, he heard the sounds of someone quivering. He kept his eyes in front of him.

And then it happened. Within seconds, everything was red. There was shouting, sounds of metal against metal, and faintly, behind him, he heard the boy gurgle as he choked on his own blood. Seonho ignored the crimson splatter by his feet. His mind was whirling, and he slashed his sword frantically. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he could remember training techniques, lessons, but the rest was a blur. The enemy had dark eyes. Beneath his helmet, Seonho could vaguely make out a fringe sweeping over his forehead. They were similar in age, and shared the same predicament. There was the same distress, the same lack of will or conviction. Neither of them wanted to this. The last thing Seonho saw were those lost, dark eyes as a sword was plunged clumsily into his stomach.

 

\--------

 

The next time, Seonho is the youngest prince of the royal family. On his sixteenth birthday, he gets a new attendant, and something in his dark eyes fascinates Seonho. His name is Guanlin. He speaks softly, with a foreign lilt in his voice and Seonho feels drawn to him -- strangely, like there’s a connection. He wonders if Guanlin was a stable boy who grew up near the palace, maybe, but no- he comes from a distant land that he’s never even heard of.

During his birthday banquet, he enjoys the feast that was prepared for him, savouring his food with pleased hums. The minstrels strum a joyful tune, and the court jesters make his eyes light up with mirth. His parents sit at the head of the table with fond smiles and his brothers roll their eyes. Around him, he can see the desserts prepared- he spies his favourite pastry and he’s found the birthday cake. If he starts eating his food a little bit faster after this, no one notices. He mind is buzzing excitedly; he imagines the night of dance and laughter, he thinks about the gifts he’s received from everyone, he sees Guanlin smiling at him by his side, and out of the corner he also sees a guard lifting his hand to his side--

Someone pushes him off his chair and he hits the floor. He’s disoriented, and as he raises his head he sees Guanlin in front of him with his sword unsheathed. Other guards rush forward, and his brothers rise from their chairs but then he hears a grunt and blood splatters on his cheek as Guanlin falls backwards. The perpetrator turns his sword on Seonho and his oldest brother slashes at him, but Guanlin hits the ground next to Seonho and the blood on his cheek mixes with tears.

 

\--------

 

Seonho is dreaming. He dreams of a battle and the fear of a soldier, he dreams of merry music and celebration; of a grand banquet in a royal palace. The dreams break when he’s tapped on the shoulder. He cracks open his eyes and immediately squeezes them close again and squints, adjusting to the bright light he sees. He hears a faint chuckle and opens his eyes again. Someone faces him with a fringe swept neatly over twinkling dark eyes.

“Sir? We’re landing soon.”

The language is familiar, but Seonho thinks he hears a bit of an accent in the gentle voice. It’s endearing- where has he heard this voice before? He straightens in his seat and smiles back, nodding shyly. Flushing, his gaze flits away and wanders to the window and abruptly, his heart drops. Suddenly, his world shakes and he jerks, gripping the armrest so tightly his knuckles turn white.

Someone tumbles into the previously empty seat next to him. Their hands find each other and Seonho’s grips it firmly as the other shakingly rubs circles on his hand. People are screaming, lights flash and someone is crying. In the frenzy, his eyes meet dark ones, and he sees his own fear in them. It’s not fair. He’s just sixteen, and more than that he feels like he knows these eyes, like he’s seen them before. Alarms go off in his head and his heart is pounding. _He wants it to stop._ His vision clouds and his hand is squeezed tighter.

“It’s,” there’s a pause, “It’s going to be okay.”

It’s not, but Seonho gives the other a watery smile. It’s fine, he’ll just have to see him in the next life (if he has one). He opens his mouth to say this, to say that maybe then they could know each other, and meet each other again, but then they plunge and they’re falling, spiraling downwards and with that his current life ends like this.

 

\--------

 

This time, Seonho runs into him. Literally. They collide and his phone slips from his hand, meeting the floor with a resounding smack. He winces. Gingerly, he stoops down and reaches for it when his fingers collide with another’s. He looked up, and their eyes met. Reddening, the stranger straightens.

“S-sorry,” he stutters, rubbing the back of his neck. His eyes dart from place to place and somewhere in his little chick heart Seonho finds him cute. He grins (ignoring the fact that his phone screen was now broken beyond recognition and it probably didn't work- he'd have to get a new one). “It’s fine!” he chirps, and at his cheerful tone the stranger looks up with wide eyes. “I’m Yoo Seonho, by the way.”

“Lai Guanlin,” the stranger- Guanlin says softly. (Seonho’s seen enough, heard enough of this Lai Guanlin already- he’s gone and maybe, just maybe at the back of his mind birds begin to sing.) They stand there awkwardly when Seonho decides to take The First Step. “Hey, do you wanna maybe..get a drink at the cafe over there?” Guanlin blinks and Seonho panics immediately. “I mean, you don’t have to and I was just asking so if you don’t want to that’s really oka-”

“Okay.”

Seonho stops. “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

-

Seonho stirs his caramel and vanilla frappuccino (with extra whipped cream and chocolate sauce), a slice of raspberry cheesecake in front of him as he watches Guanlin drink his Americano. _Without sugar,_ he thinks, scandalised. Everything was better with sugar, but he supposed it matched Guanlin’s deep, brooding look with his black ripped jeans and black sneakers. They enjoy their drinks -Seonho inhales his cake- in comfortable silence when something blares from the speakers.

_“This is a call for passenger Lai Guanlin on the flight to Taipei, Taiwan. The flight will be departing in five minutes…”_

Seonho doesn’t hear the rest as he nearly expels his cheesecake from his mouth and facepalms. He’d forgotten where they were. This was an airport, and obviously Lai Guanlin wasn’t a Korean name. He wonders vaguely how Guanlin learned Korean and how the foreign lilt in his voice was so cute when he shakes his head violently and slaps himself back into reality. Guanlin, hurriedly picking up his bags, sends him a confused look. He ignores it. He shoots up from his seat determinedly, summoning a pen from the pocket of his jeans and stabs it in Guanlin’s direction. Guanlin backs away, alarmed. Seonho scoffs.

“ _No,_ come back you idiot I’m not going to kill you I’m giving you my number.”

Guanlin relaxes. “Oh.”

Seonho rolls his eyes as he messily scrawls his number on Guanlin’s (pale) arm, drawing a little chick next to it and pocketing his pen with satisfaction. Guanlin opens his mouth, then closes it and opts for a smile and a wave, then runs as fast as his long legs can carry him before realising it’s the wrong direction and turns back. Seonho sighs. Well, at least he had Seonho’s number.

_Wait._

With a growing horror in his stomach (that wasn’t the cheesecake), he turned his phone screen to face him. He paused. He slowly took a pillow from the chair behind him and squished his face into it. And then he screamed.

(After that, Seonho would desperately take a trip to Taipei despite the odds of him seeing Guanlin again being close to zero. He couldn’t just let Guanlin go, he was sure hadn’t imagined the connection, the feeling that he’d seen him before, like he was just so _familiar_. Could he go so far to call him a soulmate? Anyhow, he’d done it. But of course, it didn’t work.

The universe laughed to itself. Poor, poor Seonho. Little did he know that Guanlin had gone to Korea for the same reasons- they’d _just_ missed each other.)

 

\--------

 

This is a life where Seonho remembers. But only slightly. He has dreams of war cries, mixed with dreams where he is falling into an endless chasm(but somehow there is someone beside him). He hears merry tunes and he feels wistful staring at planes whirring by from his window. Other than this, he is an ordinary boy. He lives with his parents and his little brother, and his favourite pastime besides playing the piano and basketball is eating five meals a day.

One day, at a band festival, he’s asked to audition for an entertainment company. He can’t sing or dance, but he shrugs and goes for the audition(hey, it could give him experience). He flunks it. He attempts dancing to Exo’s Growl, but forgets the moves halfway. His face feels like it’s burning and he wants to die. He exits the audition with one thought: that he screwed up and he’s ruined it; even if he had the tiniest chance of getting in it was gone he’d never have this opportunity again and he’s gonna grow old without becoming successful, and-

A week later Cube gets back to him and he’s stunned beyond belief. Him? Even though he messed up the dance? His parents think he’s lying and laugh it off, stopping when they realise he’s serious. It’s all one big mess of confusion and excitement, but suddenly Seonho finds himself with a contract and on the doorstep of the Cube Entertainment building, now an official trainee there. He’s excited. He’s good at playing piano, and he’d gone for a couple of karaoke sessions with his friends, but this is definitely going to be the start of something new.

He’s shown around the building by one of the staffs there, but he feels anxious about meeting the other trainees. He’s bright and loves to laugh, but he’s not so sure about meeting new people. He takes a deep breath as he walks into the trainee dorm, only to feel a sense of deja vu when he bumps into someone and his phone slips from his grasp. Someone (thankfully) catches it.

“Why was I so ready for this..” Seonho hears him grumble. It’s accented Korean, and Seonho feels frustrated because he’s heard this before and everything about this seems familiar, but why? As he looks up, he’s startled. His eyes meet dark ones which look equally as shocked. As if having a will of its own, his lips form words and his voice betrays him.

“Lai...Guanlin?”

“Yoo..yoo Seonho?”

They take some time to work it out. In this “universe”, Guanlin’s Korean is a lot less developed, but they make it work. Seonho tells Guanlin of his dreams and feelings, and Guanlin does the same. It’s strange, almost like a fantasy in their previously very normal lives, but they choose to ignore it. So what? If the last lives didn’t work out, they’ll make sure this one does. (They don’t talk about love. Seonho’s sixteen and Guanlin’s seventeen, they’d accept it when it came.) They become inseparable. Soon Seonho drops the “hyung” behind Guanlin’s name, and they act like same aged friends. They’re both equally inexperienced (Guanlin is from Taiwan again and he joined Cube not long ago), but after 6 months they’re both selected to participate in the second season of “Produce 101”.

The night before the first day of filming, Seonho lays awake, staring at the ceiling. Guanlin’s gentle snoring lulls him to sleep, but he thinks of what could happen. Guanlin was handsome, and he had the potential to be a good rapper. Seonho, on the other hand, was completely unsure. He couldn’t dance beyond basics, and his vocal range wasn’t that good yet. What if they got separated again? It’d only be one year, he told himself firmly. One year.

As Produce 101 commences, Seonho finds that to a certain extent, he is right. Guanlin is placed in D while he makes it to F. Guanlin’s already getting popular for his visuals, while he has gotten himself the nickname of “byeongari seonho” after he mentions that he’s still a chick in terms of training. He’s one of the youngest in the program and he finds that he enjoys it. They never end up in the same teams(Seonho didn’t even get to sit with him for the company performances and he also regretfully leaves the Never team), and he makes friends with the many other trainees there. He later earns another nickname of “hyung collector” and initiates skinship with Hwang Minhyun whenever he can. (He learns to adore his hyungs.)

With the eliminations coming and going, he sees the gap between him and Guanlin. Once, Guanlin makes it to 2nd place. His potential for debuting has always been high, but Seonho has always been so close yet so far. On their last evaluation, they finally end up in the same team performing Super Hot. The night before the final ranking announcement, everyone is in low spirits. Nervous, nostalgic and antsy, Seonho goes to find Guanlin in his dorm.

“Guanlin hyung,” he whispers, and he cringes at the awkwardness in his voice. Now that the program was so widely viewed, he had to call Guanlin “hyung” again(as he was supposed to, but they never really cared when they were technically soul bound). He doesn’t hear anything and turns to leave when he feels a warm hand wrap around his wrist and pull him towards the bed. He plops down.

“Seonho ah,” Guanlin’s voice is slurry, marred by sleep and Seonho’s glad the light’s off and no one can see him blush. (He stealthily places a hand on his chest. Be still, my beating heart.) “Don’t worry about tomorrow, I know you are. No matter what happens tomorrow, we’ll come back. We’re going to debut together as group under Cube, you hear me? Now go to sleep.” Guanlin sounds like he’s falling asleep again, so Seonho quickly squeezes himself under the blanket, Guanlin’s warmth by his side as he drifts asleep. Next to Guanlin, he dreams of their past lives all over again, but this time he dreams that they never leave each other. (In the morning he wakes up happy and glowing, but that glowing might also be the flash of the phone pointed at their faces. He groans and shoves his head under the blanket again.)

Seonho’s right. Guanlin makes it into Wanna One, but he doesn’t. He’s alright. He’s fine. He sees Minhyun crying, and he smiles hollowly. They’re facing the same situation. Minhyun made it, but no one else from Nu’est did. He’d have to spend two years alone. Both of them had to. He finds Minhyun and hugs him, comforting him and at the same time, seeking comfort. It was going to be a long two years for both of them. He and Guanlin are silent on the ride back to Cube. They try to be positive about it, but it wasn’t long before Guanlin packed his bags and moved to Wanna One’s new dorm.

Seonho gets invited to a few variety shows after that. He performs at the Top 35 concert and continues on his shows for a while. After a few months, Guanlin has debuted. He hardly has any time for calling or even texting Seonho, and Seonho tells himself he’s fine. Guanlin’s busy after all, he’s in a popular idol group, adored by the nation. He’d only have to wait a year for them to be together. Right?

Wrong. Cube tries to make use of Seonho’s popularity while it lasts, trying to make sure it doesn’t die in the two years while waiting for Wanna One. He’s put together with two other trainees, and suddenly they’re debuting in three weeks. Seonho feels empty, but he tells himself it’s still okay. This was a temporary thing, a unit like Youngmin and Donghyun from Brand New Music. After Guanlin comes back, they were going to be together again.  _They had to._ Seonho’s little trio does well. He smiles for variety shows, mentions Guanlin in interviews when he’s asked about it, and after a while they’re being referred to separately.

The trio has more and more comebacks, and occasionally, they see Wanna One being rushed about their schedules during music shows. Once on Music Bank, Wanna One wins and Seonho is so, so proud of Guanlin despite everything that’s happened. He wants to stay for the encore, they’re from Cube after all, idols from the same company did that sometimes right? But his manager gestures for them to come down when the encore song starts, and Seonho deflates. Desperately, he glances in Guanlin’s direction, but he’s being swept up in a group hug. His gaze lingers, but their eyes do not meet. Heaving a sigh, he looks away and trudges down the stage. (A second later, Guanlin’s eyes flit over to him.)

When Guanlin returns, Seonho is so, so tired, but he’s been waiting for this, so he marches to the dorm and flings the door open. But Guanlin isn’t there. He hears the news from one of his group members. “Lai Guanlin? Our superstar from Wanna One? They’re putting him in another new line up with a powerful concept. You two were together on Produce 101, right? Man, that sucks.” His groupmate pats him on the back sympathetically. Seonho nods dumbly and his feet bring him back to their dorm. He breathes in, then breathes out. Then he drops onto his bed. He’s been trying to convince himself, all this while, but it seemed like they just _couldn’t_ stay together. When Seonho’s tears come, there is no Guanlin to wipe them off his cheeks.

He sees him at company concerts. Over the years, their past has dissolved. Soulmates? It was all in the past now. They were in separate groups, and occasionally Produce 101 was brought up, occasionally they saw each other around the company building, but they never said anything to each other. At the end of this life, they never came back to each other.

 

\--------

 

Sometimes, Seonho feels incomplete, like a part of him is missing. He has dreams about the past, about a boy with dark eyes and a feeling of desperation and loss. He needs to find something, but he doesn’t know what. This time, he is an ordinary boy again. He still lives with his parents and his little brother and his favourite pastime besides playing the piano and basketball is still eating five meals a day. But he never gets scouted, never auditions for anything. He lives a normal life eating his mother’s food and when he is old enough, he goes to Seoul to study. He joins the basketball team, and likes to haunt the school’s music room, playing emotional ballads and catchy pop songs.

One day, he wakes up and it is raining. He wears his favourite grey hoodie and brings a chick-patterned umbrella to the nearby cafe. He pushes open the door and the bells chime brightly. He pushes down his hood and wanders to the counter. On the speakers, Hyuna’s Troublemaker is blaring, and he hums along, nodding his head to the beat. His eyes scan the menu, and he opens his mouth to order his caramel and vanilla frappuccino when the barista at the counter turns around and his world changes. His dark fringe falls over his eyes and the name tag he wears reads _Guan Lin_. Everything rushes back to him.

“Hey,” he grins shyly. “Can I get a caramel and vanilla frappuccino?” His fingers drum the counter absentmindedly. “Sure,” Guanlin smiles back, eyes twinkling. “And a raspberry cheesecake?” Seonho’s heart is fluttering, it’s lazy Saturday morning and he definitely has nowhere else to be, so he pushes his elbows off the counter, makes his way behind it and pulls Guanlin into a hug. He winds his arms around Guanlin’s neck, squishing his cheek on his shoulder and he’s still as warm as before.

Guanlin chuckles, squeezing him back and Seonho can feel the vibrations in his chest. He swallows and there’s a lump forming in his throat. “Guanlin,” he starts, and Guanlin hums, stroking his hair gently. “Promise me it’ll work this time.” His voice trembles. Guanlin pulls back and his heart drops. But Guanlin is looking at him so tenderly and his hands cup Seonho’s face and he leans in and presses his lips to his softly. The tears roll down Seonho’s cheeks again, but he is smiling this time- Guanlin is there to wipe them away gently, and he isn’t going anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> and then they spend the afternoon sipping their drinks in the cafe as it rains outside and the raindrops roll down the window and-
> 
> aaaaaaah
> 
> i almost called this 'in another life' but then i thought katy perry wouldn't suit the vibe (edit: title from crazy sexy cool by astro i love the song and i love them)
> 
> unedited so the inconsistency and loopholes make me itch(and my formatting sckdhfbv) but i wanted to get this out here, (maybe one day i'll come back here to rewrite it when i have time) so thank you for making it here and i hope this was worth the read! ^^
> 
> (edit: i spaced out the paragraphs a bit because my Dear Friend mentioned that it was too 'cramped')


End file.
